Notre Dame Won’t Be In College Football Games Unless NIL Rules Changes

This month EA Sports announced that they would be relaunching its college football series video games. Many fans were excited about the announcement, but leave it to Notre Dame to spoil it all. The University Vice President Jack Swarbrick and Director of Athletics James E. Rohr say that Notre Dame football will not be a part of the game until the players can directly benefit. So the question now is which comes first, a video game relaunch or a rule change?

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Below is the statement from Swarbick and Rohr.

“Notre Dame Athletics welcomes the return of EA Sports College Football, a video game series that has historically helped promote interest in college football. Notre Dame will not, however, participate in the game until such time as rules have been finalized governing the participation of our student-athletes.

“As those rules are developed, it is our strong desire that student-athletes be allowed to benefit directly from allowing their name, image and performance history to be used in the game.”

Due to image and likeness issues, the popular series had to pause after the release of NCAA ’14. It’s hard to believe the last time we were able to play a college football game was when Denard Robinson was a household name. It’s been nearly a decade.

The statement from Notre Dame is a double-edged sword. Good for Notre Dame for wanting their players to fairly be compensated, however, we all want a video game. Notre Dame fans will want to play with their favorite team, but as long as the video game returns it’s a win for the rest of us.

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